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Brief Profile

Dr. Manoj Datta is currently Emeritus Professor at the Civil Engineering Department of IIT Delhi, where he has been teaching and conducting research since 1980. He has been Director of Punjab Engineering College (Deemed University), Chandigarh from 2008 to 2013 (on lien from IITD), Dean (Alumni & International Programmes) at IIT Delhi from 2004 to 2007, and Head of Civil Engineering Department from 2014 to 2017.

Dr. Manoj Datta was born in the year 1955 in the town of Jallandhar in Punjab, India. His early years were at the Nangal township where his father was posted as an engineer involved in the design and construction of the prestigious Bhakra Dam and the Beas Satluj Link Project. Dr. Datta finished his school education at St. John’s High School at Chandigarh.

Prof. Datta obtained his B.Tech (Civil Engg.) from IIT Delhi in 1977, with a Director’s Silver Medal for standing first amongst the graduating students and then obtained his Ph.D. degree from the same institute in 1980.

His specialization areas include geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering, soil mechanics, foundation engineering, ground engineering, earth dams, landfill engineering, design of ash ponds & tailings ponds.

He has edited three books in the areas of landfills, solid waste management, and ash ponds and also the 1800-page proceedings of the 6th International Congress on Environmental Geotechnics. He has co-authored a textbook for undergraduate students titled “Geotechnical Engineering” with Prof. S.K Gulhati. He has published over 160 papers in journals and conferences. He has guided 11 PhD thesis and over 60 M Tech thesis.

Prof. Datta has been a consultant to over 150 projects in the areas of geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering. He has been involved in planning design, construction, and remediation of several waste disposal sites in India including HW landfills, MSW landfills, ash ponds and tailings ponds.

He has been the Principal Investigator for 9 sponsored projects funded by MoEF&CC, DST, ONGC and others and was the India team leader for the project “Protection of Environment in Asia” funded by the European Commission in which institutions from Netherlands, Germany and China were also partners.

He has been associated with the Central Pollution Control Board, Ministry of Environment and Forests as well as Ministry of Urban Development in the framing of guidelines and design manuals for Municipal Solid Waste landfills and Hazardous Waste landfills.

He has visited Stanford University, Harvard University, and MIT in the US, Imperial College, Cambridge University and Cardiff University in the UK, Tianjin University in China, IHE and TU Delft in Netherlands and Waterloo and McGill Universities in Canada.

Prof. Datta has received six best-paper awards of the Indian Geotechnical Society. He was awarded the Indian Geotechnical Society (Delhi Chapter) Leadership Award in July 2008 and was awarded the honor of delivering the prestigious IGS Annual Lecture in 2011 at the Indian Geotechnical Conference at Kochi. He received the “Lifetime Achievement Award” of Delhi Chapter of Indian Geotechnical Society in 2017 and the “Teaching Excellence Award” from IIT Delhi in 2018.


Recent Research & Development

Environmental Geotechnics
Prof. Datta and his group at IIT Delhi spearheaded the efforts to introduce the subject of Environmental Geotechnics in the postgraduate curriculum of geotechnical engineering in the country. The first Curriculum Development Workshop on this topic was held at IIT Delhi in 1995 to develop the syllabus, which was then circulated to all major PG Institutions. AICTE included this syllabus as an elective in their model curriculum on Civil Engineering. IIT Delhi became the first Institute in India to upgrade its MTech program from “Geotechnical Engineering” to “Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering” in 2003. Prof. Datta has been subsequently involved in holding several short courses and workshops on this topic for teachers of educational institutes and in helping central / state authorities in their efforts relating to planning, design, construction, and remediation of waste disposal sites in India including HW landfills, MSW landfills, ash ponds, tailings ponds and contaminated sites.

Design Manuals & Guidelines
From 2000 onwards Prof. Datta contributed technical inputs to the Ministry of Urban Development as well as Ministry of Environment and Forests and the Central Pollution Control Board for framing rules, design manuals and guidelines relating to disposal and containment of solid waste; he is the principal contributor to the following national-level manuals and guidelines published by them (these are followed by all municipalities and state pollution regulatory authorities in the country): (i) Chapter 17 (75 pages) on “Landfills” in “Manual on Municipal Solid Waste Management (2000)” Published by CPHEEO, Ministry of Urban Development; (ii) 4 manuals/guidelines on “Criteria For Hazardous Waste Landfills (2001)”, “Manual for Design Construction and Quality Control of Liners and Covers for Hazardous Waste Landfills (2002)”, “Alternate Coal Ash Transportation and Disposal Systems for Thermal Power Plants (2003)”, “Guidelines and Checklist for Evaluation of MSW Landfill Proposals with Information on Existing Landfills”, all published by Central Pollution Control Board, Ministry of Environment & Forests.

MSW and HW Landfills, Waste Dumps and Contaminated Sites
Prof. Datta and his associates have carried out extensive research on liners and covers for solid waste facilities. They have been involved in improving the design, construction, and monitoring of the first few well-designed Hazardous Waste Landfills that have come up in industrial areas across India, including those at Ankleshwar in Gujarat, Baddi, in Himachal, Kochi in Kerala, and Dahej in Gujarat. Prof. Datta has also guided the efforts to close and remediate some of the 20m+ high Municipal Solid Waste Dumps of India, including those at Gorai and Deonar in Mumbai, Ghazipur in Delhi. Technical inputs have also been provided for the remediation of NMK Lake in Andhra Pradesh, closure of Dhapa MSW Dumpsite in Kolkata and remediation of chromium contaminated sites in Hooghly District of West Bengal. He has been involved in the stability analysis of MSW waste dumps at Okhla, Ghazipur, and Bhalswa at Delhi.

Geotechnical Re-use of Waste Materials
Since 2014, Prof. Datta and his research group have focused on geotechnical re-use (in earth-fills and structural fills) of soil-like material obtained by mining MSW dumps, coal ash from thermal power stations, bottom ash from MSW waste to energy plants, and residues from C&D processing plants.

Ash Ponds and Mine Tailings Ponds
Prof. Datta, along with his other colleagues, has done extensive laboratory work and fieldwork on the engineering behavior of coal ash and mine tailings. They have helped thermal power stations and mining companies in reducing the environmental impact and improving the stability of dykes of coal ash ponds at many power plants of NTPC, Rajghat and Indraprastha in Delhi, Ramagundam, Visakhapatnam, Bhatinda, and Ropar, amongst others, as well as mine tailings ponds at Zawar, Rajpura-Dariba, Agnigundala, Hutti and Kudremukh.


Recent Important Research Papers

  1. Khanna, R., Datta, M., and Ramana, G.V. (2014). Influence of Thickness of Vertical Core on Slope Stability of Earth and Rockfill Dams, Dams and Reservoirs. Journal of British Dam Society, 24(4), pp.152 - 167. https://doi.org/10.1680/dare.15.00005
  2. Kumar, A., Datta, M., Nema A.K., and Singh, R.K. (2015). An Improved Rating System for Assessing Surface Water Contamination Potential from MSW Landfills. Environmental Modelling & Assessment, Springer, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10666-015-9493-z
  3. Ramaiah, J., Ramana, G.V., and Datta, M. (2017). Mechanical Characterization of Municipal Solid Waste from Two Waste Dumps at Delhi, India. Waste Management, 68, pp. 275-291. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2017.05.055
  4. Bhowmik, R., Shahu, J. T., and Datta, M. (2018). Failure analysis of a geomembrane lined reservoir embankment. Geotextiles and Geomembranes, 46 (1), pp. 52-65. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2017.10.005
  5. Bhowmik, R., Shahu, J. T., and Datta, M. (2019). Experimental Studies on Inclined Pullout Behaviour of Geosynthetic Sheet Vis-À-Vis Geogrid - Effect of Anchor type and Particle Size of Sand. Geotextiles and Geomembranes, 47(6), pp. 767-779. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2019.103490
  6. Bhowmik, R., Shahu, J. T., and Datta, M. (2019). Experimental Investigations on Inclined Pullout Behaviour of Geogrids Anchored in Trenches. Geosynthetics International, 26(5), pp. 515-524. https://doi.org/10.1680/jgein.19.00038
  7. Pant, A., Datta, M. and Ramana, G. V. (2019). Bottom ash as a Backfill Material in Reinforced Soil Structure. Geotextiles & Geomembranes, 47(4), pp. 514-521. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2019.01.018
  8. Pant, A., Ramana, G. V., Datta, M., and Gupta, S. K. (2019). Coal Combustion Residue as Structural Fill Material for Reinforced Soil Structures. Journal of Cleaner Production, 232, pp. 417-426. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.05.354
  9. Pant, A., Datta, M., Ramana, G. V., and Bansal, D. (2019). Measurement of Role of Transverse and Longitudinal Members on Pullout Resistance of PET Geogrid. Measurements, 148: 106944, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2019.106944
  10. Somani, M., Datta, M., Ramana, G. V., and Sreekrishnan, T. R. (2019). Leachate Characteristics of Aged Soil-Like Material from MSW Dumps: Sustainability of Landfill Mining. ASCE Journal of Hazardous, Toxic, and Radioactive Waste, 23(4), 04019014. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)HZ.2153-5515.0000452
  11. Bhowmik, R., Shahu, J. T., and Datta, M. (2020). Finite-Element Modeling of Geogrids in Trenches under Inclined Pull. International Journal of Geomechanics, 20(8), http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0001771
  12. Somani, M., Datta, M., Ramana, G. V., and Sreekrishnan, T. R. (2020). Contaminants in soil-like material recovered by landfill mining from five old dumps in India. Process Safety and Environmental Protection, 137, 82-92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2020.02.010
  13. Datta, M., Somani, M., Ramana, G.V., and Sreekrishnan, T.R., (2020). Feasibility of re-using soil-like material obtained from mining of old MSW dumps as an earth-fill and as compost. Process Safety and Environmental Protection, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psep.2020.09.051